When the Shameless editorial staff first proposed a sports issue I started having flashbacks to gym class: the thanks-for-trying Canada Fitness certificates, never being able to catch anything ever, the pain in my chest every time I tried to run. Coming in last, getting picked last, hiding my body in the change room. Letting everybody down. I dealt with the trauma back then by learning to fake cramps through pretty much any physical activity. Eventually … READ MORE

The fall issue of Shameless, our sports issue, will be on newsstands this month. Subscribe now to get it when it’s released – or visit us at Word on the Street Toronto this Sunday to pick up a copy and say hello!
by RJ Vandrish
From a distance, a trained eye can tell the age of a soccer team solely by the flocking patterns of its players. That is, the younger players are often grouped close … READ MORE

When I look back at my high school experience, if I’m being completely honest, it did not start out so well.
Mine was not a name that was whispered with hallowed reverence in the hallways. At just under five feet when I was 14, I quite literally got lost in the crowd. The transition from grade 8 to grade 9 was mostly awkward, a little painful (getting pushed into lockers = #notfun), and completely, utterly anti-climactic. … READ MORE

by Denise Reich
You’re walking down the street, or through a train station, or in a store, when someone next to you suddenly breaks away from the aisle and begins to dance. Flash mob!
What is a flash mob? It depends who you ask. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is “a group of people summoned (as by e-mail or text message) to a designated location at a specified time to perform an indicated action before dispersing.”
Flash … READ MORE

Are you ready to play? The fall issue of Shameless, our sports issue, will be on newsstands in September. Subscribe now to get it when it’s released!
This piece originally appeared at Christine’s Blog.
The very word “sports” makes me cringe. Sports have never really jived with me, and I envy people who can get out there and enroll in any form of sport and have fun while doing it.
To me, sports have meant more than just … READ MORE

Get excited! The fall issue of Shameless, our sports issue, will be on newsstands in September. Subscribe now to get it when it’s released!
by Aimee Ouellette
I started playing softball at seven years old. I played catcher, and my best friend Charmaine was a pitcher. Other people have written about how wonderful and romantic the sport of baseball can be, and I will leave it to them to describe the sport itself. Besides, what I loved … READ MORE

Can’t get enough sporty stuff? The fall issue of Shameless, our sports issue, will be on newsstands in September. Subscribe now to get it when it’s released!
by Ilana Newman
I was, in a word, unathletic as a child. I had the triple burden of being chubby, being nerdy, and being a girl. Growing up Jewish and with my nose in a book amid the corn-fed, sinewy, blonde-ponytailed masses of Dora L. Small Elementary wasn’t a good … READ MORE

by Nico Mara-McKay
The XXII Winter Olympic Games and the XI Paralympic Winter Games are set to take place in Sochi, Russia in February and March 2014, amid international protests, calls for boycotts and petitions to move the games, as outrage grows over the discriminatory stance the Russian government has taken on queer and transgender people.
While homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993, recent laws have severely restricted LGBQT rights. Same-sex couples are banned from adopting children, Moscow … READ MORE

Story shared with permission!
In an effort to try and get my body ready for pregnancy, this queer brown girl trying to get pregnant took up running about a year and a half ago. A friend of mine, let’s call her Sharon, suggested we register for the Toronto Women’s Run, a charity run that happens every year in East York to raise money for pediatric oncology and research.
Sharon and I spent once a week training on … READ MORE

I learned how to ride a bike when I was thirteen years old. It was my younger brother who taught me. A reversal of the usual order of things (wherein an older sibling teaches a younger one). The impulse to learn how to ride a bike was sudden and inexplicable, for up to that point in my life, I had resigned myself to the idea that I was unathletic and poor at sports.
Back in elementary … READ MORE

by T. Sunday
I’m sure everyone knows that there is a link between exercise and happiness for some people - there are countless studies out there that show that many of us are happier when we’re active. One night, after weeks of being completely depressed, I stayed up late reading several such papers. The following day, in a haze of rare optimism, I created a new life plan.* It involves therapy, yoga, medication, and running. I … READ MORE

There are people who ride bicycles and there are cyclists.
I’ve appreciated pedaling since my early tricycle days, but it isn’t until I got an old beater bike to get around while I studied in Sweden that I really embraced the bicycle as a mode of transportation. Everyone rode there. They pedaled to uni, cycled to the stores, to the clubs, the libraries, train stations and everywhere in between. It is here that I learned that … READ MORE

Dear Shameless readers,
Welcome to our first-ever themed blog series! Starting this week, we will post a weekly blog on the theme of our next issue: sports. Check back each week to read a story or piece about sports from Shameless bloggers, readers and staff.
by Maranda Elizabeth
In the Summer of 2010, I saw a girl downtown in rollerskates, wearing a t-shirt with the logo of the local roller derby league, and my heart fluttered. I was … READ MORE

Now that we’re no longer inundated with the minute-by-minute updates from London–newsflashes brought to you by Coke and McDonalds–it’s time to take part in Ye Olde Olympic retrospective and for me to confess the following: My name is Meg. I am a feminist. But I also love the Olympics. That said, I am highly, highly critical of the corporate ethos that governs not just the Games’ infrastructure, but also how the labour of amateur athletes … READ MORE

Thanks to our friends in Tomboyfriend for letting us know about “the antidote is the venom”, an awesome fundraiser for Shape Your Life happening in Toronto on June 26th.
Featuring Ivan E. Coyote, Sasha Van BonBon, Tomboyfriend, DJ Holly Rock, and the Newsgirls boxers.
Here’s the info from the organizers:
Please help us kick off PRIDE week by joining us for a very special fundraising event starring Ivan E. Coyote, Sasha Van BonBon, Tomboyfriend and some of the … READ MORE

Just read a great article over at Bully Bloggers about Caster Semenya, the South African runner who recently underwent gender testing after she won a gold medal in Berlin. Incidentally, she also recently underwent a makeover, presumably with the purpose of quelling the panic that ensued around having a gender-ambiguous athletic hero. It’s disturbing on many levels, and the article’s author, Tavia Nyong’o, does a great job of tying in historical ideas of … READ MORE

The Rugged Riders, a female skateboard/snowboard crew, are holding their annual all-girl freestyle snowboarding clinic and contest in several cities over the next few weeks. It’s a great chance for women at all levels of skill in snowboarding to practice, learn, and meet fellow enthuiasts. For more details and to register, go to the Rugged Riders website.
I profiled a related group of female skateboarders, the Skirtboarders, in a past issue of Shameless, so … READ MORE

But yet she can! Eri Yoshida, 16-year-old pitching wunderkind, has been drafted into an independent Japanese baseball team, the Kobe 9 Cruise. Her recruitment makes it the first of its kind in Japan’s recent history (there was a professional league over 50 years ago).
As you can see in the video, not only is she excited (“Sugoi! Bikurishimashita!” = “This is awesome! I’m so surprised!”), she’s very thankful. And while the normalcy of her … READ MORE